


Puppy Walking

by RogerStenning



Series: The Roic Files [1]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roic starts his On The Job Training as a Municipal Street Guard, and learns it's not all about lifting collars – or manhole covers, come to that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppy Walking

 

**"Puppy Walking..."**

A Vorkosigan FanFic  
By Roger Stenning

 Based on the characters, situations, and universe created, set, and owned by Lois McMaster Bujold.  
The contents of this story are for personal, non-commercial use only.  
Any use of Lois McMaster Bujold's copyrighted material or trademarks  
anywhere in this story should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.  
This disclaimer must remain as an integral part of this file.  
The material in this story may be used/abused by other FanFic authors,  
provided that credit is given where credit is due -  
"Turnabout is fair play"!

 Copyright 2011, Roger Stenning.

***

  _This fic was inspired by the Winterfair Mark Two plot bunny by selene_314:_  
 _“There are a lot of imposing figures in and around the Vorkosigan family. I'd like to see one of them early on, starting to grow into his (or her) power.”_  


***

 Many thanks as usual, to my Beta Reading Team,  
Coalboy, Jekni, Philomytha, and Sharaith,  
without whom, this story would not have proper grammar or spelling,  
andwould probably still be stuck on the keyboard!

 ***

The sergeant, whose machine-embroidered name tag read "Meklov", looked him up and down. Mostly up. Meklov wasn't a very tall man. He stood five foot six in his socks, and his uniform half boots only added three-quarters of an inch in height. But he was also practically as wide as he was... um... tall, and none of it seemed to look like flab. Hell, even his jaw looked like it had muscles on its' muscles. He was chewing the stub of a half-smoked cigar, which was currently unlit, of course, rules were rules – especially in this, the Municipal Guard's most high-profile substation in Hassadar, smack dab across the Main Square from the Counts' Residence. His voice was like two rocks of granite rubbing together. Hard, and very very rough. He had a mountain accent too, even more broad than Roics when under stress.

"So you're Roic, eh? I can see why they posted you here. You'll be able to see over the crowds." Roic, not ten minutes into his very first live shift as a Municipal Street Guard (Third Class) was somewhat taken aback. Wasn't there height restriction for the Vorkosigan Municipal Guard?

Meklov grunted at Roics' expression. "Hmph. I know what you're wondering. Height limits, right?"

Roic gulped silently, and, not trusting his voice, nodded. What, was this potential mutant pygmy a mind reader too?!

"I got an exception thanks to my Imperial Service record. And I'm damn good at my job. Which is why they got me to puppy walk you. The Municipal Guard Academy over there in Vorbarr Sultana may _train_ you how to do the job. _I'll teach you_ how to do it right, and how to go home again after each shift. Questions?"

OK, maybe not a mutant then, if he'd done Imperial Service. "Your Service Record, Sergeant?"

Meklov grunted a nod, running his hand across his head, which was shaven almost bald. "I was Imperial Infantry. Saw some proper work here and there during my time. Decided I wanted a different form of service at the end, and thanks to a half-decent recommendation from the service, here I am. I'm a thrice ten man already, coming up on my fourth ten in a few years. I aim to make it there, intact, and live disgustingly unhealthily and immorally on my pension thereafter. You got a problem with that?"

Roics shake of the head was most emphatic. "No, SIR!"

Meklov leaned up at Roic, who suddenly felt very insecure. How the HELL did the short-arse in front of him project so much physical threat in such a slight move forwards? "Can the 'Sir' crap. I work for a living. You call me 'Sergeant', until I tell you otherwise. Get yer coat and hat. I'll meet you at the gun cage." He spun around, and stalked out of the locker room, while Roic let out a heavy sigh. Well, talk about leaving good first impressions. This wasn't going at all well, was it? What a way to start a night shift!

***

Meklov was already kitted out, and leaning on the gun cage mesh wall as Roic left the locker room. Hang on, how the hell had he done that so quickly?

"C'm'ere, boy, ain't got all night, we got bad folk to nab, tourists to confuse, and lots of lovely pavement pounding to do." He nodded to the man in the gun cage, a plump Father Frost-like figure, with a balding head of white hair, who looked like he was just about ready for retirement. "This is Corporal Eventine. He runs the combined armoury and arsenal - the Gun Cage - here. Look after him, and he'll look after you. Frank, this is the new guy they gave me, name of Roic."

  
Eventine grinned toothily, revealing a somewhat uneven set of teeth, a number of which appeared to be missing from his left jaw. "Aren't you the lucky one. Mind you, if you weren't a masochist, you wouldn't be the Sub Station Training Officer, would you?" He chuckled, and turned to Roic. "Right, then. All ready to receive your gear? Good." he started to dump items from behind him onto the desk surface between them, each item landing with a metallic clunk of varying weight. "Heavy Duty Stunner. Stunner charge packs by three. Tanglefield generator. Manual handcuffs and key. Irritant spray. Baton, side-handled, extensible, with shock stick end, rechargeable. Flashlight, solid state, with two power packs. MG-Issue datapad, with spare power pack. Fines pad. Report pad. Patrol pad. Styluses, manual, black ink filled, four. Main Square station badge, embroidered, basic issue allotment pack, hook-and-loop backed.” he turned back to Roic, and tapped the badge pack. “You'll want to use a couple of those straight off. Word to the wise - keep the rest of them in your locker. You never know when you'll need one. Last, but probably no means least, your station key. Thumb prints for every item - that's twenty three of the buggers - all one below the other, along here," he pointed to a column on the data pad he slid across to Roic, "And then we're done until you get back. Remember, the ironmongery, you hand back at the shift end; the admin kit, you keep until posted away from here. Clear?" Roic nodded as he entered his print for the numerous items he'd just been issued.

  
Meklov reached across him, and dumped the various items into a shopping basket he'd retrieved around the corner of the cage. "Done? Marvellous. Over here." He nodded to a bench along the free wall of the cage room. his demeanour changed; he wasn't the grizzled unapproachable senior non-com now, he was talking normally, in a 'here's some good advice' manner.

"Stand here, and stand still. I'm going to kit you up. It's faster this way". Leaving the Stunner alone, he put every item into its allotted place on Roics utility belt. "Right. Grab your stunner, perform the Normal Safety Precautions for it, load and make it ready in all respects, and holster it securely. Go." Roic did as ordered without saying a word. He'd learned to keep his mouth shut around T.O.s in the Academy, unless asked a direct question. This felt like one of those times. He noticed that Meklov had left the handcuff key in the basket. huh?

Meklov reached into the basket, and lifted the key. "This goes where?"

"The key clip on my belt, Sergeant."

"OK, and when the bad guy - and there WILL be a bad guy who does this at least once - cuffs you with your own cuffs, and legs it away with your key, what then?"

"No idea, Sergeant."

"Good. I like trainees to admit when they don't know something. You'd be amazed how many arrogant know-it-alls come out of that damn place. Get a second key. It'll cost you five marks from Frank over there. The purchase'll be recorded, as it's a restricted item. You'll have to return it when you leave or retire from the Guard, and believe me, they will check. Do that before you knock off shift. This is where you stick it".

He undid his utility belt, and holding up the female end of the buckle, pushed and twisted it until it snapped open with a click. He showed Roic the hollow slot that separating the two halves had revealed, and pointed to the handcuff key that was secreted there. "This is a not-very-well-known feature of the manufacture of the belt buckle. It's designed to come apart to facilitate ease of repair, and somewhere along the way, it just so happened that someone noticed that a cuff key would push-fit into this slot.” He reassembled the buckle, and put it back around his waist, clipping it in place.

“Tell no-one outside the Guard about this. It may help to save your neck one day. And to save you time at the end of the shift, just hand Frank your entire belt with its contents when you log off. You'll get it back from him the next shift, with everything either replaced, recharged, or topped off." He took the unopened station badge pack from Roic, extracted a couple of the hook-and-loop badges, and handed the rest back to Roic. "Take your coat off." Meklov fastened a badge to Roics left shirt arm and left coat arm, and told him to dump the rest in his locker, which Roic did.

When Roic returned, Meklov was signing a duty log pad. He looked up as he replaced the pad on the Station Duty Sergeant's desk. “When we go out there today, we will not, I say again not, be looking to arrest anyone, break up any trouble, or in any way go looking for trouble. Today, I'll be familiarising you with the area that we patrol. Local knowledge goes a hell of a long way in this job; local knowledge can show you when something's not right. Generally speaking, when the atmosphere of a road, street, alley, or shop, feels wrong, there's a damn good reason for it, and this knowledge can tell you when it's time to hit the ground, run into trouble, or merely keep your wits about you. Got that?”

“I think so.”

“Good, because I'll be asking questions about what you see out there later. Let's go.”

***

The rest of the evening, Roic and Meklov did exactly what the sergeant had said they'd do. They pounded the pavements of the catchment area of the Sub Station, with Meklov having Roic memorise the road names, landmarks, and not-so-well-known features of the area. He did, indeed, ask questions on all of this when they broke for lunch at the Shaslysk stand in the Main Square. A couple of other Guardsmen were there, and greeted Meklov with knowing grins. Meklov introduced Roic to them as Kosmin and Verenkov, and then, looking both the veteran Guardsmen up and down, he just shook his head balefully.

“And to think that you two were prospects for rising stars when I puppy-walked you back then.” His timing was spot on, of course. The other two coughed, snorted their drinks down their noses at the same moment, stared at Meklov with shocked looks on their faces, and all three broke down and laughed. Roic, not getting the joke, just looked puzzled. “Don't worry about it, lad. Give it a couple of years, and you'll understand all too well, but to give you a heads up: You remember the speech that the Commandant of the Guard Academy gives on Welcome Day?”

Roic nodded. “It was long winded, full of the possibilities, the various branches we could serve in, and so on, that the speech, Sarn't?”

“That's the one. Biggest load of horse manure since they told us the Second Wave was on the way.” He meant the non-existent Second Colonisation Ship that never made it to Barrayar due to the original wormhole closing, which led to Barrayars' Time of Isolation, the period of several centuries of technological regression following from when the wormhole to the Nexus collapsed, before a new route was discovered to Barrayar, marking the end of her galactic isolation. “OK, I'll let you in on the joke. Opportunities for us lowly thick-headed knuckle-dragging pavement pounders are few and far between. The best we can generally hope for is that we'll get promoted in this branch, or make it to one of Centrals' Incident Response Team heavy mobs. For one of us to make it to Detective or Technical Specialist, or even Special Ops, is about as likely as finding rocking horse manure. This said, we can, and do, make a difference. OK?”

“Yeah, I guessed as much at the Academy. Guys with better education than I had were getting guidance from the course counsellors, and looking at mapped out career paths leading all the way to the top. All I got from the counsellors was the usual 'are you enjoying the course?' questions, and repeated advice that the medics kept on repeating about treating sore feet and how to keep warm in the cold.” Roic shrugged. “You kind of figure out your place in things when you get a chat like that from a guy with stars on his shoulder boards.”

The other three nodded in agreement. Meklov swallowed the remains of his Curried Chicken Shaslysk, downed the rest of his Coffee, and turned back to Roic. “Right then, let's get moving aga-” he was interrupted by his radio – all of their radios, in fact – giving off a high-pitched bleeping six times rapidly, then the strident voice of the Central Dispatcher.

“This is Central. Thirteen thirteen. I say again, thirteen thirteen. Uniform tango. Service alley behind 739 Liberation Road. All units Mike Sierra respond code blue. Out.”

Meklov swore, lobbed his coffee and rubbish in the bin beside the Shaslysk stand, and yelling “WITH ME!” at the other three, took off at the sprint, the others close behind. Roics' mind was a jumble. Thirteen-thirteen was the radio code signifying that a Guardsman was in mortal danger. It was a code that all available guardsmen were required to attend at full speed, immaterial of all other concerns. Uniform Tango meant unknown trouble. The Academy gave a couple of examples, from an instant riot – rare these days – to a bull charging down a side street and trapping a guardsman in a cul-de-sac. The moral of the tale was that anything could turn to hell in a handbasket in an instant, and Guardsmen were to be aware of their surroundings at all times. It wasn't always possible, and this, his first day on the job, was telling him that in spades.

Meklov was managing to somehow keep ahead of Roic who, with his just-out-of-the-acadamy fitness, and greater stride-length, should have been able to get ahead of the sergeant with ease, but with the route that Meklov was taking, Roic had to stay on his tail. Meklov was bulling through side streets, alleys, and around the side of a department store – Petrov's Fineries – before they got to the scene not two minutes after they'd set off, huffing and puffing. They weren't the first on the scene, but they weren't the last. Three area fliers and a dog skiff were already there, and a score of other Guardsmen arrived just after Roic and company had got there. The sergeant took one look at the scene, and swore again. Three guardsmen – from the first Flier on-scene, Roic assumed – were kneeling my another who was flat on his back, a massive gash leaking blood at an alarming rate in his lower abdomen, as they worked feverishly to stem the bleeding with a trauma bandage. There was blood everywhere.

Roic had never seen such a scene before – training could only do so much, and simulated smell tech was still a long way off - and the metallic and simultaneously nauseating smell made him pause and take a couple of sleeve covered deep breaths as he swallowed down to avoid the natural reaction to add to the mess. He didn't notice Meklovs approving glance at the way he controlled his reaction.

Meklov turned to the other two Flier-borne Guardsmen and got an instant briefing. He turned around, and gathered every spare Guardsman present. “Listen in. Our man was conducting a field interrogation on a street person about petty thefts in the area, when the guy just lashed out. He missed Ketatovicj,” he nodded towards one of the three men performing first aid, “but got his partner, Sevek there. Ketatovicj's the one who put out the thirteen call. Our offender is a white guy, about six five or so, thin, wearing bulky clothes that are old and well worn, shaggy beard and hair, dark green hooded jacket, faded blue trousers, old black work boots, and fingerless woven gloves.” Meklov glanced at his wristchrono. “He's got a ten minute head start as at right now. Sergeant Bonmarche is putting out the Eyes Open call now.” He pointed to groups of four Guardsmen at a time, “You four – north. Your four – east. You four – south, and us four – west. The rest of you, secure the scene with Sergeant Bonmarche. Medics should be here any moment, and the Response Squad's due soon to assist you with crowd control. And watch yourselves; this bastard just stabbed one of our own, so he's looking at a hangmans' noose, and has nothing more to loose, and he damn well knows it too. Take him down hard, but do it from a distance. Use your stunners, and take this bastard alive. Go.”

***

The four of them, Roic, Meklov, Kosmin and Verenkov, split into pairs, and carefully quartered the route they'd taken into the scene not fifteen minutes earlier. Roic was puzzled. “Sarn't, we'd come this way earlier, so surely this nut couldn't have been here before, surely we'd have seen him?”

Meklov's head was moving, as if on a swivel, the whole time he replied, his eyes never resting on one place for more than a second or two. “We didn't know who or what we were looking at before, and besides, these street people are masters of hiding in plain sight – it's a survival trait they learn. Saves them getting rolled by other street people when they sleep. It's a dog eat dog world for them. You'd be surprised how many there are of them. They come in from the hills, or get discharged the service and can't find work, or can't handle the city, loose their roofs, and here they stay, until they either die, go something to get them banged up in prison or hanged, or somehow – and God alone knows how - make it back to roofed status. Most petty street crime's down to them, around here. Sad, but true. So, keep your eyes open and look at and under everything, no matter how apparently insignificant, and remember, if it's large enough for a dog to hide under, there could be a man with a bloody knife instead. Got it?”

“Got it”.

They scoured the area for hours, quartering the area, while more back up units sealed the area down tightly, only allowing those they could positively identify, and who had verified need, mainly those who had homes within the area, to pass the cordons, always under escort until they got inside their homes.

Taking a much needed refreshments break after four hours of scouring and re-scouring, they arrived back near the scene of the crime, to find that a Central Station Refreshments van had set up shop, and was doing a brisk trade. An enterprising trader had done likewise with his shaslysk stand, just outside the tape-line, and was doing a fair trade as well, mainly to the members of the public who showed up out of morbid curiosity as to what was transpiring.

Roic and company used the service offered by the van. The differences were that it was cheaper than the shaslysk stand, and while the van food was fairly plain, it was, at least, hot and filling, and more importantly, given that the van was well inside the cordon and away from the tape-line, they could talk without having to make sure they weren't overheard by the public, in case they said something that could be used by, say, the press. Even more importantly for them at that moment, when guards were tired, they tended to be fairly insular anyhow, preferring their own company to that out outsiders: One of the reasons, Meklov told Roic as they queued, why Central commissioned the van. The other, he continued, “Being that at four in the morning, hours after when your shift should have ended, when you're dog tired and about ready to eat your own gloves from hunger, it's hard to find a shaslysk vendor willing to brave three-metre-high drifts of show in the middle of winter!” Tired and hungry as he was, Roic couldn't help but chuckle at the image that this observation generated in his mind.

They gathered their mugs of tea, trays of food, and utensils, and sat at the bench-equipped folding tables set up for them, and ate, commenting on their experiences in the search thus far.

Meklov, who'd paused by the scene commander, rejoined them, his mood seeming somewhat better. “Sevek's going to make it. The knife got him just below the vest, the poor sod, so they're having to grow a new set of lower intestines for him. He'll be off for a while, but they've stabilised him, and he's on the road to recovery.” The others breathed a collective relieved sigh, and began, between bites of food, to discuss more mundane matters.

Roic was the one they all seemed to pay attention to the most, strangely. Then it dawned on him. They were assessing him as a newly minted Guardsman, seeing if he'd got what was required to do the job, see if he could be trusted to watch their backs as they watched his. He paused, his tea mug halfway to his mouth, as another thought grabbed him. The others noticed. Kosmin nodded to him. “Alright, Roic, what?”

“You remember the back of Petrov's Fineries?”

“Yes. Delivery truck. We checked, it was clean. So what?”

“Wasn't there a storm drain cover under one of the wheels?”

Kosmin shrugged. “Yeah, what of it? I certainly can't lift an eighteen ton truck, doubt if a streetie could either.”

Meklov interrupted, shaking his head in self-disgust. “ _Shit_. Roic, good spot. We'll check it right now. Kosmin – how long had the truck been there? It was still practically full of goods, wasn't it?”

“Crud. You're right. Nice one, Roic.” He nodded towards Roic, half rueful, half respect. It was a start.

***

The truck was still there, the driver filling out a datapad in his nice warm cab. Meklov unlatched the retention strap to his stunner, and motioned for silent approach. A few whispered words to the driver, and the driver started his truck, and moved off to park up around the corner. Meklov used his radio to send a text update to Central, asking for silent cover response. The acknowledgement came almost immediately by text reply.

Then, they raised the cover. Roic and Verenkov lifted it as quietly as they could; it should have felt like it weighed a ton, but instead, it almost flew out of the hole as they lifted it, and they all winced as it briefly scraped the sides of the hole, while Kosmin and Meklov covered the hole with their stunners.

Nothing leapt out at them, so Meklov dropped to his knees, and peered down the hole. Blackness.

“Bugger. Not good. Someone's taken out the inspection lights. Roic, you may be onto something with this. You two,” he nodded to Kosmin and Verenkov, “Down. We'll stay up here and keep an eye out.” The other two shared a resigned glance to each other, checked their stunners, and clambered on down.

As the other two guardsmen clambered down the storm drain hole, Meklov updated central, this time by voice. “Central, Mike Sierra Sergeant Three, over.”

“Mike Sierra Sergeant Three, Central, go.”

“Two going down the hole, two staying topside, fence area distance four zero zero metres, centre my location, until you hear back from me, over.”

“Central, two hunters going below, two overwatch, fence four hundred, centre your location, roger, over.”

“Mike Sierra Sergeant Three, roger, out.”

Roic followed the radio chatter carefully. It was exactly as he'd been trained back at the Academy. They'd said that a Guardsman from Vorblane's district could work in Vorhallon's without too much trouble, and this was the proof: Radio discipline was maintained throughout the Empire. Made sense: If you had troops from the Imperial Service working with Guards from the various districts, you didn't want to have to learn another voice procedure just to order a search; no, you wanted an immediate familiarity with them, and this was one of the ways to maintain that process: A common set of voice procedures. It was reassuring to him to know that what he'd learned in training was actually what happened 'in the field'. Things had a way of being subtly different once out of training, in just about every walk of life, but this was definitely not. It was nice to know it all worked properly.

He didn't know what it was that made him spin round and aim his stunner. A small sound maybe, his being new and twitchy, but one piece of advice from training echoed in his mind as he did so. “You have stunners for a reason. You can shoot first, and apologise later. It's called stunner tag. Don't be shy about that damned trigger. It may well save your unworthy necks!”. He centred his aim in a heartbeat at a shadowy figure emerging from another shadow some distance away, and yelled “GUARDS! HALT!” and without further thought on the matter, he was squeezing the trigger, his stunner buzzing loudly as it fired. The figure stumbled, but then seemed to shake off the stun, and took off running. _DAMN!_

He glanced at Meklov, who yelled “GO! I'm right behind you!” as he reached for his radio, so Roic did just that: He practically took off, sprinting away full tilt after the shadow. Reaching the spot where he'd seen the figure, he saw a raised manhole cover, and peering down the revealed hole, saw Kosmin half way down it, hauling himself up the ladder. Kosmin paused, catching his breath, and called up, “Did you get him?”

“Dunno”, replied Roic, “Stunner seemed to have no effect, and he took off. That way.” He indicated with his stunner. “Where's Verenkov?”

“Long range, big surprise. Nic's right behind me. He's slower. Get after the bastard, willya?!”

Roic didn't reply, he shot off again, heading for the corner where he lost sight of the offender. He could hear Meklov pounding up behind him, yelling into his radio, and paid him no heed, his brand-new instincts and training telling him to look to the front and watch for the target. He got to the corner, and paused. Kneeling down, he glanced quickly around the corner, hauling his head rapidly back after a super-fast glance, and examining the brief picture in his minds' eye afterwards. An alley, strewn with rubbish, escape ladders either side leading up to the roofs, the alley ending in a ten-feet-high wall. No open fire exits. And apparently clear of human life. Roic was one hundred percent certain that the figure had vanished into this alley – there was nowhere else it could have gone. Meklov pounded to a stop beside him. “What?”

“Bugger's vanished, Sarn't”.

“No chance. Blind alley?”

“No. Cul-de-sac. No open doors, all fire exits. Lots of rubbish. Ladders up to the roofs. You thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Up.”

Roic winced. “Nuts.”

Meklov grinned mercilessly. “You said it.”

Roic checked his stunner, and with it at the low ready position in a two handed grip, went round the corner, covering all angles to his front in a steady, but swift, undulating arc, up and down, left to right. “Clear.”

Meklov followed, using the same technique, if a little more quickly. Experience had it's advantages. “Go up the left one. I'll be right behind you. Watch yourself as you get to the top.”

“Got it.” Roic holstered his weapon, and started climbing, slowly, steadily, carefully testing his weight on each rung as he climbed, keeping things as silent as he could. His youth and fitness counted for a lot in this. He paused just below the top, and drew his stunner, pointing it upwards as he carefully pulled himself up above the line of the wall. Again, he didn't know what it was that made him duck, but the plank of wood sailed over his head by a fraction of an inch, and caught his stunner muzzle, sending it flying out of his grip to sail down into the alley. “SHIT!” Roic wasn't one to retreat; his brother taught him that when they were kids.

Instead, he leapt up and grabbed the arm holding the plank “C'M'ERE YOU!” the figure – taller than Roic by a good few inches, railed backwards, trying to shake Roic off, stumbling over backwards, taking Roic with him, and causing Roic to damn near skin his shins on the roof top wall, forcing a brief cry of pain from Roic as he landed on the man – and got a mouthful of stench from him, almost forcing a rather understandable gagging reaction, before he forced out a woof, and continued to grapple with the man. Narrowly avoiding a knee to the groin, Roic instinctively ducked his head, and the mans intended head butt landed on the top of Roics head. Painful for Roic, sheer agony for the man, whose nose suddenly got flattened with the impact. The man suddenly and forcefully pushed at Roic, and they rolled apart, Roic rolling to his feet, snapping his baton loose from it's holster and, with a flick of the wrist, extending it to it's full three foot length, which automatically activated and charged the shock tip, which glowed red and emitterd a quiet but high-pitched rising whine to emphasis the fact.

Roic had had more than enough of this, and snapping the baton to the ready high position, advanced a step, and roared “FREEZE!”,

The man snapped glances left and right, and looked to be ready to flee, as a sudden yell from behind Roic echoed across the roof “ _FLAT!_ ”

The word caused a pavlovian-like reaction in Roic, installed for just such moments during his training at the Guard Acadamy. Without concious thought, he had dropped like a rock and rolled away, just as a loud buzz sounded. The man seemed to freeze for an instant, his face a rictus of shock, and then toppled over, thoroughly stunned by Meklov, who was panting, and hanging onto the ladder through hooked arms, which held Roics' stunner in his two-handed grip. “And bloody stay there, you sod,” he said to the prostrate street person. Meklov pulled himself up onto the roof, and tossed the stunner to Roic, as he leaned onto the wall, relaxing visibly. “Think you might need this one day, lad. Caught it on the way down. Good job, by the way.”

“Thanks. Thought I was toast when that damn plank went past my head.”

“You ducked, so no worries. I don't think this is beginners luck, I reckon you got the right instincts there, lad. Keep it up, we'll make a decent guard of you yet. Now, cuff this git, and let's call in the retrieval team and their flyer.”

Meklov grinned evilly all of a sudden, and pointed at Roic.

“Oh, and don't come near me until the clean-up team's deloused you. These buggers have lice.”

Roic sagged. “Oh, _wonderful_.”

“Welcome to the Guard, laddie!” Meklovs' laughter could be heard for five blocks around.


End file.
